Duly at evening Helen came

To this lone silent spot,

From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow

So much of sympathy to borrow

As soothed her own dark lot.

Duly each evening from her home
With her fair child would Helen come

To sit upon that antique seat,

While the hues of day were pale.
And the bright boy beside her feet
Now lay, lifting at intervals

His broad blue eyes on her;
Now where some sudden impulse calls
Followed. He was a gentle boy,
And in all gentle sports took joy.
Oft in a dry leaf for a boat,

With a small feather for a sail,
His fancy on that spring would float,
If some invisible breeze might stir

Its marble calm. And Helen smiled
Through tears of awe on the gay child,
To think that a boy as fair as he,
In years which never more may be,
By that same fount, in that same wood,
The like sweet fancies had pursued;

And that a mother, lost like her,
Had mournfully sate watching him.

Then all the scene was wont to swim

Through the mist of a burning tear.

For many months had Helen known

This scene; and now she thither turned

Her footsteps, not alone.

The friend whose falsehood she had mourned

Sate with her on that seat of stone.

Silent they sate; for evening,

And the power its glimpses bring,

Had with one awful shadow quelled

The passion of their grief. They sate With linked hands, for unrepelled

Had Helen taken Rosalind's.

Like the autumn wind when it unbinds

The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair
Which is twined in the sultry summer air

Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre

Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet,
And the sound of her heart that ever beat
As with sighs and words she breathed on her,
Unbind the knots of her friend's despair,

Till her thoughts were free to float and flow;
And from her labouring bosom now,

Like the bursting of a prisoned flame,
The voice of a long-pent sorrow came.
ROSALIND.

I saw the dark earth fall upon

The coffin; and I saw the stone
Laid over him whom this cold breast
Had pillowed to his nightly rest.
Thou knowest not, thou canst not know,
My agony. Oh! I could not weep :
The sources whence such blessings flow,
Were not to be approached by me!
But I could smile, and I could sleep,
Though with a self-accusing heart.

In morning's light, in evening's gloom,
I watched and would not thence depart-
My husband's unlamented tomb.

My children knew their sire was gone;

But, when I told them "he is dead,"

They laughed aloud in frantic glee,

They clapped their hands and leaped about,

Answering each other's ecstasy

With many a prank and merry shout;

But I sat silent and alone,

Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.

They laughed, for he was dead; but I
Sate with a hard and tearless eye,
And with a heart which would deny
The secret joy it could not quell,

Low muttering o'er his loathed name;
Till from that self-contention came
Remorse where sin was none—a hell
Which in pure spirits should not dwell.

I'll tell thee truth. He was a man
Hard, selfish, loving only gold,
Yet full of guile : his pale eyes ran

With tears which each some falsehood told,
And oft his smooth and bridled tongue

Would give the lie to his flushing cheek. He was a coward to the strong;

He was a tyrant to the weak,

On whom his vengeance he would wreak :
For scorn, whose arrows search the heart,
From many a stranger's eye would dart,
And on his memory cling, and follow
His soul to its home so cold and hollow.
He was a tyrant to the weak,
And we were such, alas the day!
Oft, when my little ones at play

Were in youth's natural lightness gay,

Or if they listened to some tale

Of travellers, or of fairyland,

When the light from the woodfire's dying brand

Flashed on their faces,-if they heard,

Or thought they heard, upon the stair

His footstep, the suspended word

Died on my lips. We all grew pale;

The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear If it thought it heard its father near ; And my two wild boys would near my knee Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.

I'll tell thee truth: I loved another.

His name in my ear was ever ringing,
His form to my brain was ever clinging;

Yet, if some stranger breathed that name,

My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast. My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame,

My days were dim in the shadow cast

By the memory of the same.

Day and night, day and night,

He was my breath and life and light,

For three short years which soon were past.

In the fourth, my gentle mother

Led me to the shrine, to be

His sworn bride eternally.

And now we stood on the altar stair,

When my father came from a distant land,
And with a loud and fearful cry
Rushed between us suddenly.

I saw the stream of his thin grey hair,
I saw his lean and lifted hand,

And heard his words-and live! O God!
Wherefore do I live?" Hold, hold !”

He cried, "I tell thee 'tis her brother!
Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod

Of yon churchyard rests in her shroud so cold.
I am now weak and pale and old :

We were once dear to one another,
I and that corpse. Thou art our child!"
Then with a laugh both long and wild
The youth upon the pavement fell :
They found him dead! All looked on me,
The spasms of my despair to see;
But I was calm. I went away;
I was clammy-cold like clay.
I did not weep-I did not speak;
But day by day, week after week,

I walked about like a corpse alive.
Alas! sweet friend, you must believe
This heart is stone-it did not break.

My father lived a little while;

But all might see that he was dying, He smiled with such a woful smile.

When he was in the churchyard lying
Among the worms, we grew quite poor,

So that no one would give us bread;
My mother looked at me, and said

Faint words of cheer, which only meant
That she could die and be content;

So I went forth from the same church door

To another husband's bed.

And this was he who died at last,

When weeks and months and years had passed,

Through which I firmly did fulfil

My duties, a devoted wife,

With the stern step of vanquished will

Walking beneath the night of life,
Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain
Falling for ever, pain by pain,

The very hope of death's dear rest;
Which, since the heart within my breast
Of natural life was dispossessed,

Its strange sustainer there had been.

When flowers were dead, and grass was green
Upon my mother's grave-that mother
Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make

My wan eyes glitter for her sake,
Was my vowed task, the single care
Which once gave life to my despair-
When she was a thing that did not stir,
And the crawling worms were cradling her
To a sleep more deep and so more sweet

Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee, I lived; a living pulse then beat

Beneath my heart, that awakened me.
What was this pulse so warm and free?
Alas! I knew it could not be

My own dull blood. 'Twas like a thought
Of liquid love, that spread and wrought
Under my bosom and in my brain,

And crept with the blood through every vein;
And hour by hour, day after day,
The wonder could not charm away,
But laid in sleep my wakeful pain,—
Until I knew it was a child,

And then I wept. For long long years
These frozen eyes had shed no tears:
But now 'Twas the season fair and mild
When April has wept itself to May:
I sate through the sweet sunny day
By my window bowered round with leaves,
And down my cheeks the quick tears fell
Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves
When warm Spring showers are passing o'er.
O Helen, none can ever tell
The joy it was to weep once more!

I wept to think how hard it were